Marion Returns
I can't tell you how happy this photo makes me.
Marion Ravenwood is on the set of Indy IV. (Hollywood Elsewhere)
Lindsay Lohan Turns Around. (Or... Does She?)
Thanks to Andy Whitman for bringing to my attention the only Lindsay Lohan news worth reporting.Read more
To Damn Harry Potter or Praise Him?
WARNING: SPOILERS ARE INCLUDED IN SOME OF THESE LINKS!
Here's Christianity Today's Ted Olsen on the wide range of evangelical-Christian reactions to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Meanwhile, most of the Catholic blog-coverage has treated the arrival of The Deathly Hallows as a a reason to celebrate. Mark Shea has catalogued many posts on the subject, and in our occasional conversations over lunch he enthuses about the books with gusto. Here's Amy Wellborn's post, with an array of readers' comments.
And then there's Jimmy Akin, whose perspective is closer to my own. I just don't care for Rowling's writing. Sure, it's whimsical and inventive. But eventually, the stories just start to feel redundant, and I grow weary of tales about children breaking the rules, being rewarded, and then accepting apologies from the ignorant grownups. But I'll defend the goodness of her subject matter and her fairy-tale genre without hesitation. And Ross Douthat is disappointed in the story for the same kinds of reasons that I bailed out on the series a long time ago: He's frustrated by the predictability, and by the wild array of rather arbitrary magic spells that make the storytelling more and more problematic and implausible.
In memory of Ulrich Mühe... and Andrei Tarkovsky
Farewell to Ulrich Mühe, a talented actor whose excellent lead performance in last year's Oscar-winning The Lives of Others made me aware of his talent for the first time. He was 54. BBC reports that he had been struggling with stomach cancer. (Thanks to Chattaway for the alert.)Read more
Damon on Bond vs. Bourne
Matt Damon on why J-Bourne is better than J-Bond:
Bond is "an imperialist and he's a misogynist. He kills people and laughs and sips martinis and wisecracks about it," Damon, 36, told The Associated Press in an interview.
...
"Bourne is this paranoid guy. He's on the run. He's not the government. The government is after him. He's a serial monogamist who's in love with his dead girlfriend and can't stop thinking about her," Damon said. "He's the opposite of James Bond."
Amen. And that's why James Bond bugs me and Jason Bourne makes me stand up and cheer.
A Brief Lesson in Looking Closer: From the Dardennes Brothers and Doug Cummings
The Dardennes brothers have made some of my favorite films of the past decade -- L'Enfant, The Son, and Rosetta -- and now they have a new three-minute short.
Thanks so much to Doug Cummings for the link. And then for thinking it through with us. Folks, watch the video (with the volume turned up) before you read the commentary.
Teachers, you could inspire your students by showing this and challenging them with questions about it. Something as simple as this exercise could open up a whole new chapter in their engagement with art.
Jeff Berryman on Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
Jeff Berryman's latest post is on Philip Pullman's The Subtle Knife.
He throws down the gauntlet. He invites us to a challenging conversation. I admire his ambition, patience, insight, and grace as he explores these stories.
If you've read the books, I encourage you to answer his invitation.
(Earlier: Jeff's first post on The Golden Compass.)
Publisher's Weekly on "Auralia's Colors"
Approximately one hour after I turned in Cyndere's Midnight to the publisher, my editor passed along the new Publisher's Weekly review of Auralia's Colors ...
Film critic and author Overstreet (Through a Screen Darkly) offers a powerful myth for his first foray into fiction. The kingdom of Abascar is cloaked in gloom, sentenced to an ongoing "wintering" by a jealous queen, in which colors have been done away with and are only allowed in the royal court. But young Auralia, found as a baby by the river and raised by outcasts, has a talent for finding colors everywhere and bringing them to life in a way no one has ever seen before. The fate of the kingdom rests on what Auralia chooses to do and how the king responds. Overstreet creates a world with not only its own geography but its own vocabulary — it is haunted by beastmen, home to cloudgrasper trees, vawns (something like dinosaurs) and twister fish. There are Christian bones to the story, (particularly in the mystery of the beast called the Keeper, who is always moving about, but he likes to hide just to see who'll come seeking‚) which may be too obvious to some and not at all clear to others. Overstreet's writing is precise and beautiful, and the story is masterfully told. Readers will be hungry for the next installment. (Sept.)
What a day!
What's the Best Film You've Seen in 2007?
Rotten Tomatoes has just compiled their list of the Best-Reviewed Films of 2007 (so far).
And I am not at all surprised to see which film holds a commanding lead.
What's the best film of the year so far according to you?
Suzanne Vega Returns
Here's one of my favorite music critics reviewing a new album from one of my favorite artists.
Beauty and Crime is, without reservation, the defining creative moment of Suzanne Vega's career thus far, and a morally and emotionally communicative recording that instructs even as it confesses from inside, and reports from the margins and becomes, in its graceful impurity, a vision that is singular and utterly direct.